In lieu of a credible macroeconomic data reporting infrastructure in America, increasingly more people are forced to resort to secondary trend indicators, most of which have zero economic "credibility" within the mainstream, yet which provide just as good a perspective of what may be happening behind the scenes in this once great country. A good example was a recent Gallup poll, which contrary to all expectations based on a now completley irrelvant and thoroughly discredited ADP number, which led some br(j)okers such as the Barclays Insane Predictions Team to speculate a 580,000 NFP number was in the books, indicated that the jobless situation barely improved in December. Sure enough, this was promptly confirmed by the January 7 NFP number. And so, in looking for a variety of other "off the grid" economic indicators we read a recent report by Nicholas Colas, which proves to us that we are not the only 'nerdy' entity out there increasingly searching for metrics that have some rooting in reality, and not in the FASB-BLS-Census Bureau joint ventured never-never land. And while we recreate the key points from the report, the one item that should be highlighted is that, as we have suspected for a while, the social undertow of fear, skepticism and anger is coming to a boil, as Google queries of the "Buy A Gun" search querry have just hit an all time high. How much of this is due to the recent events from Tucson, AZ is unclear. What is clear is that the trend is most certainly not your friend (unless you are of course the CEO of Smith and Wesson).

We'll leave the interpretation of this chart to our very erudite politicians.

As for other must read observations on the topic of derivative economic indicators, we present Nicholas Colas' must read latest: "Off The Grid” Economic Indicators – Q410 Edition

There are a lot of economic indicators out there, and we pay attention to all of them because government decision makers have told us they shape economic policy. But there’s a wealth of independently developed economic and statistical data available as well, and much of it provides much-needed color on the real state of the U.S. economy. Our collection of anecdotal datapoints, which we have dubbed the “Off The Grid” indicators, paint a more nuanced picture of a slow growth U.S. economy that is still struggling with the aftermath of the Financial Crisis. Bullish points include demand for pickup trucks, used cars and an increasing number of people who leave their jobs voluntarily instead of through layoff. Bearish points are headlined by still-rising food stamp participation, with gun sales and rampant buying of silver coins underpinning continued popular concerns over personal security and the soundness of the dollar. Food inflation also features on this list. Neutral points: mutual fund inflows (but potentially turning positive) and Gallup poll consumer spending.

Ever wonder where the word “Nerd” came from? It’s a “nerdy” question, to be sure, but apparently it comes from a Dr. Seuss book entitled “If I Ran the Zoo.” I don’t remember the appearance of the word from my early exposure to the work, but I certainly remember the opening:

“If I ran the zoo,”Said young Gerald McGrew“I’d make a few changes,That’s just what I’d do.”

That’s pretty much the way I feel about the current state of economic indicators that we all pick apart, analyze, and try to cajole into some form of investable signal every day. We look at them because the Federal Reserve looks at them. And the Treasury. And the White House. And every other seat of economic power. But in reality they look at them because these datasets have been around long enough that someone, somewhere, has done a doctoral dissertation or other academic treatise validating their relevance.

In the world of automated and computerized payrolls, for example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics still uses a telephone survey of a few thousand households to decide if employment is rising or falling. OK, this used to be a hard issue to tackle in the 1950s and 1960s. But the U.S. Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service tracks everyone’s contributions for payroll and tax withholding in real time now. If someone stops getting their paycheck, Treasury knows about it by the time of their next pay cycle. They can identify where the person works based on their zip code. The employment picture should be clear as day using this data. It used to be hard when paychecks doubled as computer punchcards (my Dad had those in the 1970s). The telephone survey approach is like using a horse and buggy to get around when there are the keys to a perfectly good Ferrari in your pocket.

All good natured ranting aside, there’s no excuse for not casting a wider net when it comes to the never-ending search for useful economic data. And you don’t need to be a “nerd” (there’s that word again) to get it – we aren’t talking about advanced language algorithms working against a Twitter API feed. The data is out there and thanks to the Internet it is pretty easy to track. That’s the reason we have developed our “Off the Grid” economic indicators – our “eyes” into the real U.S. economy. And those “eyes,” we hope, are truly the windows into the soul of some form of lasting recovery.

Our take away from this quarter’s indicators is that the recovery in the U.S. economy is slow and unevenly distributed, with several long-tailed effects that may take decades to fully understand.

The bad news – and there’s still plenty of it – is that the Financial Crisis pushed millions of Americans into government assistance programs such as Food Stamps, dampened their confidence in the currency, and made them feel much less secure about their personal safety.

The good news – and there is more now than at any point in the year we’ve been looking at the data – is that more people are feeling better about the labor markets, buying big ticket items, and perhaps even investing in U.S. stocks again.

The wild card – and it is a big one – is food inflation. We’re back to where we were at the peak of the prior cycle in 2007, but with an economy that is nowhere near as strong.

The data, in short, supports the mainstream economic viewpoint that the U.S. economy is improving at a slow pace. The nuances that it highlights, however, are that the damage from the recent recession is as much cultural as economic. A consumer base – even one at the lower end of the economic ladder – with fundamental concerns over food security and affordability or personal safety is not the “dry tinder” of a strong economic bounce back. I don’t know whether to call that “New Normal,” “Old Abnormal” or whatever other rubric might fit this paradigm. But it is a picture of the landscape that you don’t see as much in the government-approved economic indicators, and it tells a separate and perhaps more accurate truth.

The various indicators that inform this view are all included in the attachments to this note , and we’ll touch on a few of the important ones here:

Food Stamps – This program, originally created to sell surplus produce to starving Americans in the Depression, has morphed over the decades into a foodpurchase grant to low income households. The growth rates for SNAP (the modern name for Food Stamps – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) have been stratospheric for the last two years at +15% year-on-year growth. Part of this was a change to eligibility requirements in 2009, but a lot more was the impact on the recession among low income households. The program now helps over 43 million Americans feed themselves, about 14% of the U.S. population.

The good news, if one can call it that, is that the growth rates are slowing. Last month one of our one strategy team members went to several public assistance offices outside New York to speak to people waiting for a consultation and those interviews shed some light on this trend. The bottom line is that such facilities were simply overwhelmed over the past two years. People who qualified for public assistance needed to visit such centers several times, as the paperwork needed to complete the application process is lengthy and convoluted. So growth rates rose steadily as these individuals finally cleared the hurdles required to receive benefits. One other data point that supports that the growth in the SNAP program may have peaked: Google searches for the term “Food Stamps” are no higher than mid-year 2010.

The deeper question is what the widespread adoption of SNAP will do to the society over the coming years. This is actually not a budget discussion – SNAP is very efficient and costs less than $100 billion a year to help +40 million Americans. Rather, it is a question of the effects of long term reliance on government support to economic issues such as labor participation rates and employment levels. We are in uncharted waters here, to be sure.

Durable Goods Purchases – The most upbeat news from our indicators is the degree to which consumers are snapping up used cars and pickups. Yes, the economic data focuses on all light vehicles, but the “Off the Grid” indicators dance to a different drummer. Used car prices are a great leading indicator for new car and truck demand, and the Manheim Auto Auction data keeps hitting new highs. Pickup trucks are work vehicles, primarily purchased by small businesses. After a steep selloff from the bursting of the housing bubble, pickup truck demand is now positive again, to the tune of +20% year on year for several months in a row.

Guns, Ammunition, and Silver Coins – Whether you are “pro-“ or “anti-“ gun, the sale of firearms should be on your radar screen as a heuristic measurement of something I will call “consumer security.” There is a baseline of organic firearm demand in the U.S. – for years it was about 8 million units, as measured by the FBI’s instant background check request data. With the 2008 recession that number spiked to first 10 million and now 14 million background checks a year. At first observers chalked that up to a Democratic President, but it has been years since Obama’s inauguration and the numbers keep climbing. I attribute that to a deeper sense of unease in the population – perhaps about government controls, perhaps about crime. Hard to say how much of each. But it is easy to say that an unsure society is not one ready to resume a carefree spending profile. And keep in mind that guns are not cheap – a basic rifle or shotgun will run $300 or more.

Much of the same point applies to the recent surge in demand for silver coins. From a monthly sales run rate of less than 1 million coins, the U.S. Mint now pushes out close to 3 million coins a month, and dealers would clearly like to have more. As with guns, silver coins are not cheap - +$30/piece, or +$600 for a roll of 20. I suspect much of this demand stems from gold’s steady price move higher and the fact that the Mint is not producing as many fractional ounce gold coins as it once did. That means people with less than $1,400 to spend on precious metals coins migrate to silver. That is born out in the decline in Google searches for “Gold Coins” as prices there spiked in 2010. Bottom line – there is a fundamental lack of confidence among enough people in the population as to the long term soundness of the dollar.

We’ll close out on a few positive points and one real problem.

Workers are quitting more often now, according to the underappreciated but highly useful BLS JOLTS data. Almost half of all separations from an employer are now the employee’s idea, rather than a layoff. That dovetails with the recent rise in consumer confidence, as the attached chart highlights.

Mutual fund flows into U.S. stock funds had a positive week, ending 1/12/11. It has been a long dry spell here – ever since May 2010 – so perhaps investors are finally reengaging with domestic equities as they start contributing to 401(k)s in the New Year.

Food inflation could be a very large, very nasty problem. The Dept of Agriculture’s “Prices Received” data shows that “All Farm” prices are back to where they were in 2007.

I can see him comingHe's walking down the highwayWith his big boots onAnd his big thumb outHe wants to get meHe wants to hurt meHe wants bring me downBut Sometime later when I'm feel a little straighterI will come across a strangerWho'll remind me of the dangerAnd then I'll run him overPretty smart on my partFind my way home in the darkI can see her comingSure looks prettyHer breasts are boldAnd her mouth is largeShe wants to get meShe wants to hurt meShe wants to bring me downBut sometime later when I feel a little nakedI'll lead her to altarThen I'll tie her all in leatherThen I'm gonna whip herPretty smart on my partFind my way home in the darkI can see him comingHe's walking through bedroomWith a switchblade knifeHe's looking at my wifeHe wants to get meHe wants to hurt meHe wants to bring me downBut sometime later when I feel a little braverI'll go hunting with my rifleWhere the wild geese are flyingThen I'm gonna bag onePretty smart on my partFind my way home in the darkI can see them comingThey're training in the mountainsAnd they talk chineseAnd they spread diseaseThey want to get meThey want to hurt meThey want bring me downBut sometime later when I feel a little saferWe'll assassinate the presidentAnd take over the governmentAnd then we're going to fry themPretty smart on my partFind my way home in the dark

The F'n J-Tribe here is going to fall... and the idiot Jews don't think we know about it all either... that's the funniest thing. The idiot Jews scamming America... and not thinking some us are clued in to their SCAMS here. Wall Street? The Fed? The bought US Weimer-US Congress.. are these all Jew Scams? Yes. Yes they are. Like another leveraged Jew Multi-Cult SCAM.

--CSR

Israel Did 9/11 (along with a lot of NeoCon US JEWS) -- no Jesus doesn't love these Talmudics and their hatred of the GOYIM AMERICAN. The US is going bankrupt fighting Jew wars for SCAMS... and the idiot J-B*tches don't think we see it:

My spin after many years with the firearms issues,the American consumer, is this.

ONE, the election caused a huge spike, and Barry is the best weapons salesman since Clinton(former title holder).Plus, the AZ incedent, started the McMurray NEW BILL shite, which automatically caused everyone and their dogs, to buy every std cap(15-17-19-20-25-30-33rd mag they can find.

At VERY inflated prices).These are the Std sized mags, not considered HIGH capacity(that is the MSM's MANTRA, for ANTI's MONEY).

Long guns that use Hi Cap mags naturally, have gone up in price minimum of 30%, and Handgun mags, Doubled,if not tripled, IF you can find any.

Same with any other Hi Cap weapon, as the Antis are trying to get a bill to outlaw current and past owners from keeping these mags.( i.e.) NO GF Clause.

(that will surely sell well.)

In 9mm,45ACP,5.56, 7.62x51.

The mags for these are being sucked into the usual Vortex of fear, this is purely at least 90% of the reason for the surge.

Trust me, been thru the Clintons twice(enough arms,ammo, and mags were bought during his Admins, to defeat any conventional army on the planet.

Sammy is just EXTRA.( A Lot extra)

Passage of Socialist laws, and programs,building up ther Fed LE corps(all branches, have brought this on).

The other 10%, are fearful of retaining what they have, and plan on trying to keep it.(this is economy driven, and others job losses driven).

As for this;

The most upbeat news from our indicators is the degree to which consumers are snapping up used cars and pickups.

Companies, small & Large can only hold off SO long, before they MUST update their fleets,we're looking at close to 3+years of no real purchases of these sized/type vehicles.

Now, if they want to stay on the road, they either buy,or quit.

No CHOICE, so this is not nearly as rosy as most think.

As for the USED cars, the best of them were sent to the crushers(thanks to the ObamaRama Trade in and Crush) drive.

There has been a shortage of used vehicles (decent ones) since that event.So, rather than buy NEW cars, if a decent used floats by, typically its gone like a fart in the wind.

If you go/have been to a Used vehicles auction, you will NEVER get the vehicles, (that are good sellers, and good shape), Dealers will beat you to them and pay Full Wholesale PLUS for them, individuals are out of luck.

As for the BIG ticket items, same there, Fridges,Stoves, TV's, etc, can only last so long.

Plus the AMERICAN consumer can only KEEP themselves out pf debt for no more than 2-3yrs.

Here we are again, been here, done this, many times in many decades fighting the PTB.

My spin on firearms. I bought my AK and my 9mm stainless Beretta about a year ago, thinking that the O-team would ban them. Yes, I have been to the ranges to practice and am stocking up on ammo and accessories as I get more familiar with my weapons.

A guy I know in rural NC (who already had a BIG gun collection) went and bought $12,000 worth of guns & ammo the day after O was elected. He is also the only guy I know who owns a .50 caliber Barrett. Don't trespass onto his property, LOL...

Having lead and lead delivery systems allows me to protect my OTHER precious metals.

In any country you should be a firearm/s owner, except in the ones that simple ownership will cost you your head, and the rest of ther populace is so fearful they would not back each other up.

That said, we are in America,We have a Right and a Responsibility to own, and know how,when,and where we can/should use them.

Thats part of the Right.Idiots that own weapons, and do not know them inside out, should not own one.(IMO)

The dude w/ the 82 (I assume its a semi for that jack$), is in no better shape than a field savvy due with a Bolt gun(capapble to hit consistently at ranges to at least 800-1000yds, and have the ability to use that advantage.

Then you can own his .50,LOL

.50's are great investments(esp 82's),make great boat anchors, but suck for anti personell work at extended ranges.Now,as a field weapon I would have chosen a dfferent .50( a more portable, accurate weapon).

AR's are good to 500-600yds, AK's (due to crap ammo, and design, are basically 30-30's, great 150-200yd max weapons,brush guns) and will take hell and back and keep working.(but I do not want to have to use any weapon (unless forced),at ranges under 500yds,preferably much farther.

Stealth and the upper hand goes a long way.CQB requires buddies, and your in the shit if your having to defend a position that close,you need buddies.

For in home use(no kids), no apartments, a 20/12 ga w/bird is great.

Handguns are not the weapon of choice for Apt use, or where others(kids) live with you.They are over penetrative, and if used should be loaded w/Glasers,or a similar round.

You have defensive weapons covered, now you need one good OFFENSIVE one, and thats a Bolt , Heavy Barrel, preferable SS, and since you likely have the $$, have a shop like GA Precision build you one.Not cheap(nothing good is), but for $3500.00, you can have a solid bulletproof platform that will give you the ability(with training, and practice), the ability to shoot .5moa, all day, and do so without having to be cleaned every 200-400rds.

And their SIMPLE to maintain,and tough as nails.I suggest a M40 stock, a #6 -#7 tube,( I prefer the 5R barrels) and about 22-24" OAL.( no bells and whistles, just a solid patform, that will be able to be passed down to your kid, and his too.

Optics, 3-15 variable, and a GOOD quality(they can reccomend), and your good to go for under $5k out the door to you.

You will always be pretty much guanteed to be able to break even if you were foolish enough to sell it.(<;

As dawn broke, a SWAT team waiting to execute a search warrant wanted a last-minute aerial sweep of the property, in part to check for unseen dangers. But there was a problem: The department's aircraft section feared that if it put up a helicopter, the suspect might try to shoot it down.

So the Texas agents did what no state or local law enforcement agency had done before in a high-risk operation: They launched a drone. A bird-size device called a Wasp floated hundreds of feet into the sky and instantly beamed live video to agents on the ground. The SWAT team stormed the house and arrested the suspect.

"The nice thing is it's covert," said Bill C. Nabors Jr., chief pilot with the Texas DPS, who in a recent interview described the 2009 operation for the first time publicly. "You don't hear it, and unless you know what you're looking for, you can't see it."

But the operation outside Austin presaged what could prove to be one of the most far-reaching and potentially controversial uses of drones: as a new and relatively cheap surveillance tool in domestic law enforcement.

Heh, 'Sidewinder'; can you say 'overkill'? I knew you could. I'm sure a Canadian with a .22 would do just fine at knocking one of those outta the sky; less risk of collateral damage in an urban area too. But at less than $500 bux a pop, who would give a ratz anus anyway?

I happened to have witnessed one of the first public demonstrations of a remote control model plane equipped with a video camera which provided real-time flight imagery to a ground control station. The system, developed by a U.S. Air Force research lab, was flown at a national model aeronautics meet held at Wright Patterson Air Force Base sometime between '69 and '72 -- don't remember the exact year since I was about 12 at the time. From my vantage point at the control station, I was able watch their video monitor through out the model aircraft's take-off, flight and final spin into the ground when the controllers lost communication. They said the system cost upwards of $20k. One of the adult bystanders said, "Well, back to the ol' drawing board"; which got a good round of chuckles from everyone. That was 40 years, ago. Obviously someone went back to the drawing board.

The model plane had a 1/2 horsepower engine and at least an 8 foot wing span. The developers said the operational range was about 1/4 mile, which they believed the plane flew beyond, resulting in their loss of control and the planes crash. I think the video system was not "off the shelf" commercial, but derived from some early video guided bomb system developed during the Vietnam war.

There's no practical computerized flying system so they still need to be controlled by remote. Anyone who's flown a helicopter or airplane by remote can attest to the difficulty. Now turn off the lights, fly it first person on camera.

Its not hard to send one up in the air and back down at night for a quick peak over a fence, but anything more involved isn't going to happen.

A friend of mine cracked the serial port and can now download GPS data to the microcontroller of an AR drone ... we keep joking about flying quad rotors anywhere via IP addy, just find a wifi enabled flightpath or hack waypoints along the way.

As for our one world government, clamp down on the internet rising of power of state nonsense, bring it on.

A B-29 bomber just like the one in the video, without the Bell X-1 rocket plane, was one of the standout model planes at the meet I attended as a boy. It was flown on mock bombing runs right in front of the crowd, with its machine gun turrets spinning and flashing, bomb bay doors opening and bombs dropping out. Needless to say, my friend and I immediately told our fathers that we knew just what we wanted for Christmas! We were disappointed at just receiving control-line model planes instead of the massive bomber RC model. We lost interest in RC model planes when he "discovered" electric guitars, I "discovered" computer programming and we both "discovered" girls. Found out later in high school and college that girls were more interested in "discovering" guys who play electric guitars than those who program computers.

In dealing with law enforcements signal detection capability, the underground resistance may have to develop low tech drone countermeasures. Maybe, flocks of trained suicidal Canada Geese, which have been known to bring down commercial airliners.

In the mid '90s, a professor at Georgia Tech Research Institute was doing some work on dragonfly sized drones. With advances in nano-scale technology, I believe they are probably able to either attach streaming web-cams onto bumble bees or to hack into the bee's optics and transmit its visual images.

The article, disappointingly, doesn't mention whether the individual they apprehended had any of the items they claimed he had. The article is just a pump for legitimizing the use of these things on a domestic population.

This is just an extension of the city riding around through alleys on a ladder truck looking over the property owners fences to see if there's a violation of code / ordinance.

I see little good that can come of this except more spending on things that provide little if any return, like traffic cams, which have been found to cost more than they bring in, at least at this point.

These things are always promoted as necessary tools for fighting crime and making people safe, it's only later that they get turned on the general population.

Help me out, Turd (I don't have an NYU MBA either); why not suppress the price of a commodity that everyone uses? Does the average American (or world) care more about the price of gold or the price of gas?

With respect to all the econ/labor statistics, I stopped relying upon any of those years ago and "went local" (loco?). Walk your neighborhood with your spouse/kids at night to see how many houses are vacant/short-saled/foreclosured/unmarketed/RE signage. Also walk to the top of your street with a lawn chair and look down it between 7-9AM on a Monday. How many people are going to work? Compare that to how your grew up. Are things better/different? Talk to your neighbors. Think of it as a neighborhood watch program. Rinse and Repeat. Sure if your area has a ton of retired folks its different, but fundamentally, your situation is not going to improve unless you stop watching Bloomberg/Fox/CNBC and deal with the realities on the ground. Start planning a garden for spring/summer. Chickens? Adapt to local conditions, because GS will always make the market months before you know anything. Watch those new mutual fund inflows vaporize in April. Suckers. TANSTAAFL!

That's what I think is happening. People are beginning to realize that what they hear on the news and local conditions do not match. It doesn't take much genius to see the increase in armed robberies (we seem to have a bank or store a day in my locale), home invasions, thefts, street beggars, etc. Nor does it take much math skills to figure out what happens when fuel prices dramatically rise and people are already on the edge.

Anecdotal, but my parents, different locality, thought I was crazy talking about all this 2 years ago, now get it. They had some druggie beating on their door late at night, asking for $$ and have been approached for $$ in parking lots several times. Mom, who hates guns, told my dad that the shotgun wasn't going to do any good sitting in a closet.

I personally know a number of formerly gun-averse females who are buying and taking training because of local "economic indicators".

To wit, my wife for years was opposed to any kind of firearm in the home (got young kids, I understand her argument).... I have not only been given clearance to get a shotgun, but the other day she asked if I was working on it!

Word of advice: Best thing to do with kids and guns? Let them satisfy their EVERY curiosity about them. When they show an interest in the gun, let them hold/take down/aim/shoot/clean/dry fire/etc. to their hearts content. (All of course guided and supervised)

The more they know and the less a mystery these firearms are, the less likely they are to try to get a hold of them when they shouldn't. My firearms are locked up because of my childrens friends, not because of my children.

In our house, hubby was against owning a gun, until just recently. Thugs have been casing rural properties and robbing them. We're in the middle of nowhere, and always felt pretty safe up to this point(our big German sheps our only 'protection').So tomorrow we pick up a modest Mossburg Maverick 88 shotgun.

The Maverick 88 is actually a pretty damn good gun. I bought one ten - twelve years ago for a pickup gun. One that was inexpensive enough it didn't make me fret to know that it wasn't getting safe queen treatment. Well let me tell you, this thing has been beat to shit and never let me down.

I ended up working a job in western ND about seven years ago, nothing to do but shoot clay pigeons and pheasants. That 88 has had thousands of rounds through it, and put a shitload of birds in the freezer. And for a cheaply finished gun that has spent a lot of time in a soft case in a pickup in all sorts of weather,,, NO flash rust.

You'll be happy with it.

EDIT** It's only going to hold two rounds in the tube when you get it. You have to drive the plug out of it to get it to full capacity. I think there are vids on you tube. If not, look me up I'll explain it. It's a piece of cake.

In the Hungarian revolution of 1956 Hungarian street fighters got gun training in the back of a truck and on the way to the battle lines. They did pretty damn good with what they had. They were lied to and thought that we would help them. Ike lied. Many of these kinds of places have cropped up now, that guns are in vogue, so to speak, all of them trying to cash in on the 2nd amendment action. The guy that runs front sight is a crook and this can be proven by on line court documentation in a class action lawsuit where he embezzled a lot of money off of people on his land scams etc. Besides they charge way too much money for their programs. Just a thought.

Aww fuck dude, Hackworth claimed that kid in Paducah learned all he needed from his Nintendo controller. Jesus the kid translated static screen shots with a little rectangular box into moving expert head shots. His Nintendo skills allowed him to compensate for never firing a gun in his little life.

there is a reason why the glock is one of the most popular handguns. I own several. My ruger would occasionally jam. I never clean my glocks and feed them trash ammo all day long and they never jam. Ok I do kinda sorta clean them once a year or so, and my carry piece I keep well cleaned. The average person should have a plastic glock. With just basic care it will not fail you. Run a box of ammunition through it that you plan to keep it loaded with just to be sure it likes it. But my glocks are like Roy Rogers. They never met a bullet they didn't like.

before I bought my first pistol I read a number of reviews - one of the reviews for Glocks ran thousands of rounds through the pistol without cleaning it, threw the pistol in the sand and then drove a truck over it several times before picking it up and continuing to fire

this convinced me that Glock is the way to go - I like .45 caliber since any torso shot is guaranteed to stop the assailant - the G21 is a large-framed pistol with 10 rounds while the G36 is a small-framed pistol with 6 rounds (and if you need more than 6 rounds of .45 you are in a world of hurt ...)

Large cap mags can be your best friend, love the 1911 but sometimes 7 does not get it done.. Read "Surviving in Argentina" blog, he talks about why large cap will save your life in economic meltdown conditions.

Agree with CC, had a G22 for a while now, never misfired/failed to fire. Fell in a river once with it in my pack, shot a duck for dinner with it after. My friends make fun of me, because "everybody owns one"... Or "its plastic-fantastic". It is the most reliable gun I have ever seen.

**Glocks only have a trigger safety, lots of stories about folks drawing it out of a holster and firing right into their own toe.

Anyone who shoots themselves in the foot while drawing their own weapon beacuase it was not "equipped with a safety" should be assfucked by a midget Mexican Pro-Wrestler and then summarily shot for stupidity.

The most common handgun, the REVOLVER has NEVER had and NEVER will have ANY safety.

The most common handgun, the REVOLVER has NEVER had and NEVER will have ANY safety.

I hear that, but revolvers (and 1911s) do have the old reliable double action trigger. Couple that with a long heavy pull and its pretty safe, assuming the hammer wasn't back. Now a glock with a 4 lb half inch long pull after the "safety" disengages is a recipe for stupidity.

I personally like it, no bullshit. The whole safety thing revolves around ranges and people learning to shoot while being tested for their concealed carry.... It happens quite a bit here in TX. I'm amazed it seems like a reasonable idea to those folks. I personally am quite competent with a pistol and refuse* to concealed carry because of the unreal responsibility and liability you expose yourself to.

AR15 (M16) come is two general calibers. .223 and 5.56. 5.56 is the stronger milspec round, whereas the .223 fits into the same chamber, but is slightly underpowered civillian round to the 5.56. What does this mean? It means that with (extended) use, the 5.56 will also fire .223, but NOT the other way around. Putting a 5.56 round in a .223 chamber will lead to overpressure and serious injury. We are splitting hairs here, and it will also depend on the manufacutuer. Just caveat emptor on this. 5.56 is more expensive than .223. National Guard will deploy with 5.56. So will police departments, but also with .223. I have never seen any US police/military deploy domestically with AK loadouts - 7.62x39. Yet the civilian market/reloads are filed with AK ammo. Cheaper. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I'm in Canada, so choices are fairly limited. Magazines are limited to 5 rounds and pistols are restricted. There is also the fact that Canadian law frowns upon people defending themselves with arms or weapons of any kind. You're likely to be charged along side your attacker.

That doesn't leave me with much faith if things get dicey, but then again, that stuff might go right out the window.

No. There's very little difference in pressure of 223 and 5.56. There's a larger difference in 7.62 and .308. But pressure has nothing to do with it. 7.62 has thicker brass and it holds slightly less powder and creates slightly less pressure. A big strong chunck of metal is capable of handling it either way. The only advantage 7.62 has is that it's thicker brass can sit in a hot chamber longer before cooking off and firing wihtout you pulling the trigger. Very important in machine guns but mostly important in semi auto and triple fire weapons. What good is high fire rate weapons if when you shoot a big burst and duck back in the foxhole and your weapon cooks off a round into your buddies back. Milspec and civilian version differences are only interested in these things, the thicker brass's cookoff resistance.

Use 223 and 308 to your hearts content in any military rifle. But if you are using it in really hot weather watch out for barrel temps.

I have a spanish weapon that was used to develop the 7.62 round on a small ring mauser bolt action setup. It's old as dirt and has deep pits in parts of the receiver from improper storage. But I have no worries about using 308 in it. The pressure differences are only about 10 percent and you can't shoot it fast enough to reach cookoff. My ar 15 is a sniper weapon with 24 inch barrel and the extra 8 inches of barrel keeps it's chamber dozens of degrees cooler than short barrelled version. The only drawback to the ar-15 is it has high twist rate to stabilize long 78 grain bullets so it shoots 55 grainers like crap but does pretty good on 62 grainers. 78 grain bullets sit so freaking far down into the bullet you can't get much powder in there anyway.

.223 for drilling metal, .308 for light masonary work, .338 lapua and .50 bmg when you absolutely positively have to break a truck or make a hole in a brick building or remain supersonic past 600 yards.

every time you pull the trigger.. $5 bucks... now, lets discuss the glass you want...

US Optics?

S and B?

or something else cheap? around $4,000.00

a good lapua gun... is a bolt action gun.. the ar style is just for shits and giggles and for goof balls with to much time on thier hands...

where do you live (no you dont need to tell me, of course not) my point being are you on the side of a mountain where you need a 1 mile range? do you have enough open ground around your Ranch that 1 mile plus in range makes sense?

or is this for a townhouse... I would reccomend a smaller round that would not kill 10 of your neighbors in the same instant (after going the all the walls between you and them).

Maybe he just wants one because he doesn't have anything like it. Kind of why I just plain ass want a .50. Don't need it, can't use it, can't afford to shoot the shit out of it, but I REALLY REALLY WANT one.

I have a VERY supportive and accomedating wife. Growing up a country boy, and being a relatively dedicated hunter, my wife is used to guns coming and going, buy one sell one, buy two, keep your eye on the queen....this safe, that cabinet.....

I can do 2k or less on a rifle without really having any "splainin" to do. I come home 5k light and haven't even looked at optics????

If anybody has any ideas for how to pull this one off.... please feel free to chime in.

A sling is a projectile weapon typically used to throw a blunt projectile such as a stone. It is also known as the shepherd's sling.

A sling has a small cradle or pouch in the middle of two lengths of cord. The sling stone is placed in the pouch. Both cords are held in the hand, then the sling is swung and with a flick of the wrist the pouch is pulled away at the precise moment. This frees the projectile to fly on a tangent to the circle made by the pouch's rotation. The sling derives its effectiveness by essentially extending the length of a human arm, thus allowing stones to be thrown several times farther than they could be by hand.

The sling is very inexpensive, and easy to build. It has historically been used for hunting game and in combat. Today it still interests sportsmen as a survival tool and as an improvised weapon. It's also possible to see the sling used in riots around the world.

It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur, which may be integrated into the weapon or made separately and attached, in which the butt of the projectile, properly called a dart, rests. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup. The dart is thrown by the action of the upper arm and wrist in combination with the atlatl as an extension of the throwing arm, adding significant force through increased angular momentum.

Common dog ball-throwers (molded plastic shafts used for throwing tennis balls for dogs to fetch) use the same principles and in effect are a type of atlatl.

A traditional atlatl is a long-range weapon and can readily achieve speeds of over 150 km/h (93 mph).[2]

I looked at some youtube footage of the atlatl in action. Looks like a very effective weapon for throwing large spears. I like things like that. Further proof that ancient cultures were every bit as clever as us in their own time.

Penetration will be king, Ak turns more cover into concealment than an AR 15. Need to penetrate brick walls, car bodies, small trees, AK is your best bet. M16 are not available to general public without huge cost and selling your soul to the Feds..

Your statement isn't wrong, but let's face it, if it REALLY goes that far, anyone who is asking the question is flat fucked anyway. Personally, if you don't want 5.56, than 7.62 NATO is the way to go. Buy 5.56 if for no other reason than availability of ammo. If you honestly think that isn't enough dick, saying you're going with 7.62x39 is kissing your sister. It's a shit heel of a round. .308 is the better big brother. No question.